Leon Panetta: Women Now Allowed to Serve in Combat Positions

When’s the last time there’s been good military news? Probably when President Obama repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, no? And before that, the death of Osama bin Laden, probably. Military decisions and operations usually only make headlines when they’re bad news, is our point, so this is a nice change of pace!

Today marks another one of those rare occasions, as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta will soon announce a lift on the 20-ish-year ban “prohibiting women from being assigned to smaller ground combat units,” the Associated Press reports. The decision opens “hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after more than a decade at war.” Good news, see? Just ignore the bit about “decade of war.”

Panetta is expected to announce the reversal tomorrow, during which he’ll presumably explain the reasoning behind the decision. The Department of Defense’s justification of the 1994 ban on women in combat was “‘practical barriers,’ said DOD spokeswoman Eillen Lainez, ‘which if not approached in a deliberate manner, could adversely impact the health of our service members and degrade mission accomplishment,’” Discovery.com reported back in November. As for the sudden policy switch, if we had to take a guess—for the record, we do not have to take a guess—the increasingly remote and technological nature of “combat” may have contributed to the change. Also: any organization that is arguably less inclusive than Augusta National Golf Club is headed for reform one way or another. Here’s looking at you, Republican party!